The ‘pace’ is where interiors really pivots in my opinion. It’s possible that many of the Cmdrs who ascribe to interiors also prefer a certain pace to their games.
For FD to apply interiors and for it to be an effective money maker in regards to skins, they must also build a new game element that reflects and exploits that pace.
Now to negate the will they/wont they discussion let’s briefly overview their own evidence; they did start out with this in mind, they did verbally discuss and build mood boards considering it, and they did say publicly (granted FD has tried very hard to omit such remarks) that they could do it but that ultimately it was just a case of ‘time’ - but ultimately they too publicly discarded such concepts - granted ‘not very publicly and very briefly’; said comments were veiled and rather businesslike, and yes many of us old timers probably chose to not remember them saying it. But they did.
Effectively it was down to time and resources.
I believe they made a corporate move to refocus what ED was and sell that key aspect to the ‘quick play’ market, namely combat. We had that with CQC, FDs effort (granted not successful) to attract the quick play console market, really that’s what it was, to enable players to quickly drop in and shoot.
All that time and energy was never applied to interiors. Then we had Odyssey, where Arthur stated ‘interiors were never considered’. An odd statement seeing as it take an absolute age to walk the length of the ship in a dock to get to the blue portal…
This ought to be obvious to all of us that FD no longer perceives ED in the same regard as the original founders did. They firefight, pouring resources where they are needed the most, changing their direction to capitalise. There is no long plan development. If they think it will make money, they will build it,
So let’s not try and focus upon an imaged dream that likely will never see the light of day.
For interiors to work, FD will have to change the pace of the game, that means as an internalised ‘granular’ process, of ‘walking’ around and interacting with NPCS and non violent puzzles that take up you’re time to explore. This logically will be down to EVA, ship to ship boarding, crew management and ‘quest’ type missions.
Personally that sounds fantastic to me. But I’m not FDs chosen demographic; quick play games do not keep my attention. I like deep slow and complex games. I liked ED for its Role Play capabilities and as a backer it was promoted as a complex slow paced game. I play it now less and less because its evident a lot of that is reliant upon the player.
What the new update brings is evidently more FPS, the new ships obviously have a more combat aspect to them, they look to be adapting Power Play to incorporate Thargoids as a superpower, and probably might give Players more ownership. Again more FPS work, team work based shooting.
It sounds like a fix for Odyssey, to enable it to reach it’s potential.
Interiors might work in a fast paced environment but it would be 2 dimensional at best.
Follow the money. How much do skins make FD? How much of that comes from Odyssey content? FD have had to downsize, I don’t believe they will be rocking the boat anytime soon.
What can FD learn from Starfield, what does SF do well that makes money, can that be applied to ED… but ultimately do FD want to do this, and can they afford it?
